May 2009, An announcement was made at our church that our youth pastor was resigning his position. My immediate thought was, "That is Bad." We did not have a huge youth group, but we had a good group of great kids. I just did not want our kids to go without some kind of ministry. We did not need to lose the small group we had. It is a sad fact, youth ministry is a very neglected ministry. Youth ministers typically do not stay very long. Burnout is high, and turnover is rapid. So many youth pastors either quit because of the high stress and emotional demands or they want to pastor their own church.
My initial thought was accompanied with conviction. Not only did I think "that is bad." , I thought "I have to do something." Immediately I went to our pastor and asked "What do you want me to do?" I was thinking, I would head up a search committee to find a new youth pastor. Brother steve said, "Take over wednesday night youth." "OK!" "wait, what did i just agree to, take over wednesday night youth?"
I remember thinking to myself, what did I just get myself in to. I had no idea how to lead a youth group. I am going to kill this program. we will have no teenagers in church anymore. I am going to run all of them off.
I really had no idea what I was going to do. I knew I had some pretty big shoes to fill. The kids loved their youth pastor. I knew there was no way I could even come close to what he had been doing. I met up with a friend of mine who was a youth pastor at another church and asked him, "Hey Randy, what do I do with a youth group?" his response, "Oh that is easy." "Really Randy, its easy?" "Yep, it is easy. You do what God tells you to do." I said, "Thanks Randy, thanks for your help." I was thinking, "some help that was, a real friend could have offered much better advice."
Randy was exactly right, I needed to do what God wanted me to do. If I tried to fill someone else's shoes, then I was doing what they did. I was serving God not man, or youth for that part. I was serving God. In order to serve God, I needed to do what He wanted. Easy right? No, it was not that easy. Now I needed to figure out what that was. It was time to commit totally to His will and that was going to take some serious commitment.
At first, I was trying to mimic other youth groups. Fun, games, and devotions. We had fun, me and all 9 teenagers God had brought into my life. In my heart, I knew that what we were doing was not in God's will. Now it was time to search the heart and desire of God's will for the church of His youth. that is another story I will share next.
Isaiah 55:9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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